


Sorry, Angel

by Anthropos_Metron



Category: Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII, Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Conspiracies, Dark, Gen, Guilt, Low Self-Esteem, Partial Vincent Backstory Fic, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Pseudo fix-it, Quasi Vincent Dad Fic, Shinra Company, Surveillance, Turks (Compilation of FFVII)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:55:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22542856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anthropos_Metron/pseuds/Anthropos_Metron
Summary: Vincent Valentine, Director of the Department of Administrative Research, prepares for a social occasion.Set around the time of the early Crisis Core/Before Crisis period, but in an AU. Tags to be updated as and when.
Relationships: Sephiroth & Vincent Valentine
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Standard disclaimers apply, these aren't my characters, I'm not making an IP claim, and this isn't being done for commercial purposes. I'm just playing around with the characters because I love the FF games and writing.

The butt of his pistol connects with the nut sitting on his desk, dead centre.

The fragments of the shell skid over the surface of the desk, some falling into oblivions on the floor. The nut itself remains, spinning on the spot.

He has to admit, smashing nuts open with the butt of his gun is a touch crass, a touch gauche, even with an audience like Reno, but it’s effective. He pulls the edge of his hand across his desk, gently drawing the detritus of the shells to one side, and then adjusting the flat to progressively diminish the area of the pile. This is important.

He places his pistol on the desk, before drumming the fingers of one hand on it. He lowers his head a little after a time, yet he can sense that Reno and Tseng maintain their stares.

He looks up. The young redhead languidly rests his back against the wall of the office, one sneaker-shod foot also connecting with it, his knee forming an extended V. His expression displays the usual combination of a leer mixed with cheerful insouciance. Tseng, on the other hand, stands rigid in front of the desk in that strange posture of his, one hand resting behind him in the small of his back.

His father had termed people who always seemed obtrusively vertical to be in a state of ‘hovering’. Tseng always seems to him to hover.

There was something, there, underneath the surface of diffidence and reserve. A guardedness. He was an odd character to discern. Even for a Turk, he held a lot back. Yet he was effective; he’d been Veld’s protégé with good reason.

The stares and the silence continue on, prickly, more palpable.

He’d finalised their briefing, and hadn’t dismissed them, expecting that they’d want to ventilate some of the details. Though they’d surely pieced together much due to the surveillance work, the entirety of it, revealed, was still rather weighty. Instead, they simply looked, as if they wanted some kind of affirmation from him. This was irritating, as if anything he had been hoping for something of the opposite effect.

It's Reno who finally wades into the thicket of silence. "Penny for your thoughts, chief."

He protrudes his chin a little in concession, and sniffs. "Pretty big operation. Nothing we can’t handle, though. The army will take care of the rest."

He looks up. Tseng’s eyes remain fixed on him.

Leaning back a little in his chair, he reaches for his glass of ice water on the desk, and takes a sip, before tossing the nut into his mouth. Crunching, he flicks open his snuff box. He isn’t a drinker anymore, but he likes tobacco. Of all drugs, it produces the best high-to-retention of control ratio. Within the building, he was confined on choice, but even so, there was an unfussy elegance about snuff. He takes the powder between thumb and forefinger, and inhales.

Such good stuff. Not so good for his sinuses, though.

He’s tiring of Tseng’s silence. It seems a challenge, almost.

"Tseng. Will you do this thing?" His tone is customarily flat, not at all matching the issue at hand; it was a superfluous question anyhow, operational assignments were not done by consent. But he needs the confirmation.

"All the evidence we’ve collected seems beyond dispute, Sir."

That was true enough, though a little evasive. It hadn’t been _quite_ what he’d been asking.

"And you’ll do exactly what’s required?" he asks Tseng, almost in a whisper.

"Of course, Sir. Of course."

" _Go-od_ ," he finds himself saying, as two syllables.

Perhaps it was the snuff, but he begins to feel a little sick. Not as bad as cigarettes on an empty stomach, though.

"In some ways, it’s simply routine," Tseng comments, flatly, still staring.

Tseng was definitely, at some level, judging him. Or challenging him. He was certain of it now.

The glass of water stops, mid-distance between the desk and his lips. "Yes. All entirely routine. "

He stares back at Tseng.

Reno blows a bubble from the gum he’s chewing, breaking the intensity of the moment. There would always be a little disconnect in his mind between the boyish, devil-may-care naivety of Reno’s demeanour, and the reality that he was endearingly, sometimes breathtakingly efficient; always ready for any task, good or ill. Precisely the quality you wanted in a Turk, nominally.

Reno draws himself forward, off the support of the wall, and flexes his shoulders, attempting to tease out the tension. His lithe body clings to his white shirt, under the suit jacket. He giggles.

"Tseng, ya make it sound so _boring_. This one’s gonna be such a _blast_."

"Hey," Vincent Valentine finds himself saying, in a gravelly burble, "there’s not going to be any of that shit. No wet work. Just bring them in."

He keeps his head down, but he notices, in his peripheral vision, a change in Tseng. A slight brightening, a loosening, an easiness. Tseng liked restraint. Following the rules, keeping discipline. Keeping just the right side of the line. Or whatever fucking justification, whatever internalisation of the situation Tseng feels he needs, he seems to have it, now.

He jerks his head straight up, and takes one final assessment of the pair, and then takes a single, deep breath. "Okay. Dismissed."

As they leave his office, he begins to slacken his tie, working it loose, tugging it from side to side. He sits in a stupor in his chair, delaying the inevitable. Something much worse than the briefing approaches, much worse than dealing with Tseng.

But it has to be done.

He scoops up the black receiver of his desk phone from its cradle.

He has a social call to arrange.


	2. Chapter 2

He’d never be reconciled to how the elevators in the Shinra building were so wilfully exposed.

It was one of those little flourishes of design which architects were so fond of, but which made him wince. True, back when the building was designed there was much less trouble to contend with, but glass elevators on the outside of the building still made him shudder. It didn’t matter that most of the building was so elevated, or that Sector 0 was self-contained; it was just not _done_ in his mind.

He steps in, as his reflected body in the glass steps towards him. He doesn’t like that, either.

The man in the glass is lined in the face and greying in the hair, his expression flat, unvarying. A drone, devoid of spark or impulse.

He turns to face the elevator door, trying to put that man out of his mind.

The elevator begins its descent, and he ruminates. Veld had done the right thing. Gotten out on early retirement to spend more time with his family. He hoped he had the good sense to steer his kid away from the Turks.

It stung, having never started a family, or even settled down. Yet so many men of middle years cut out all that after a divorce, and got back into their careers. Perhaps he’d just taken a more direct route. He couldn’t remotely imagine he’d have been a good family man, or partner, or husband.

The elevator’s descent flattens, and it pings, signalling new entrants. The doors open, and Palmer’s form waddles towards him.

Palmer was roughly flat last in the great Shinra executive food chain, which exacerbated what he suspected was a natural tendency to be both indiscrete and loquacious. Every moment in the man’s company was a torment.

Sure enough, he launches into a spot of gossip-fishing without missing a beat. "So, you been to see the Pres, then?"

Staring straight ahead, he says nothing. As it happened, he had, and the President had not been in a particularly good mood, though that was understandable.

"You’re a pretty cold fish, aren’t ya?"

It was an asinine question to ask the head of the Turks, though doubtless Palmer was only trying to provoke. "Mmm."

Palmer laughs a little, setting his collection of chins gyrating. "You make Hollander look touchy-feely."

Shots in the dark, fat man. He isn’t rising to any of it.

Mercifully, the elevator draws down to Palmer’s floor. Relief quickly folds into silent horror, however, as the exchange of passengers produces someone guaranteed to make him shrink even further into his skin.

He steps inside, lab coat over a sweater vest and green tie, his posture something of a hunch. His jade eyes briefly flick over him, his expression listless and rather doleful. He turns, to lean on the handrail of the elevator, and folds his arms across his chest. In his peripheral vision, the kid’s face is wholly obscured behind lengths of silver hair.

It’s Lucrecia’s kid.

He takes an intake of breath, and keeps his eyes fixed on the door of the elevator. He knew the kid was in the building on one of those Science Department internships, but to actually share the confinement of a few feet is horrifying and shaming beyond words.

It was a little surprising, that Lucrecia hadn’t advised the kid - _man_ , now - against it. He couldn’t imagine she’d really have wanted either of them to have anything to do with Shinra at this distance ever again. Yet here he was.

It isn’t making it one bit easier that when they’d shared that glance as he’d got in the elevator, he’d noticed that there was no Hojo in that face; it was all Lucrecia. He couldn’t quite place why, but if it had been Hojo, full of anger and contempt, he supposed it would be easier. But no, just Lucrecia’s face, full of sadness and, bizarrely, not a little embarrassment.

He tries to distract himself, with thoughts of paperwork or his little domestic routines. It’s no use. He can’t stop thinking about it. Not while he’s there, an arm’s length away, sharing the same glass tube. It’s impossible.

 _That_ day.

The elevator continues down, as his mind boils, as he swallows, and as he keeps his eyes fixed on the door, staring into a thousand miles, into nothing.

After a dozen hateful memories have swam in his mind, the elevator pings once more, and he commands his legs to begin moving.

He halts, before he leaves the elevator, and his mouth opens.

He could say so much – but in having everything to say, in trying to bridge decades, he has nothing to say. There’s too much, and it's all too raw, too direct, for the chasm to be bridged in mere seconds, in the tiny space of a narrow few words.

_I don’t hate your Mom. I don’t hate you. If I’d been suitable or able, I would have done anything in the world to be a dad for you._

But how can you possibly say such a thing to a stranger, in an elevator.

"Tell your Mom…" is all that emerges from his mouth, in a low burble.

He shakes his head, ridding himself of the attempt, and begins to walk forward. He has a social visit to keep.

That _day_ …

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the more alert readers may have noticed something here. In this reality, the bombing of Kalm didn't happen. 
> 
> This is relatively important for later.


	3. Chapter 3

Dad.

Dad and Father were two sides of the same coin; one formal, one familiar. One remote, one near.

He’d sometimes wondered what it felt like to make the crossing away from the use of Father, and into Dad. Or to never use ‘Father’ at all, except on forms. It had never happened to him. Dad was always Father. Father, distant, aloof, always leaving the house, in his memory, off to something involving work, some conference or symposium or the like. Just passing through, just en-route.

And when he descended from the heavens, Father came full of expectation, full of demands about performance at school. Gods forbid that should be faltering. Yet eventually, when childhood bled into adolescence, he’d begun to push back against the iron force of expectation. The tempers on both sides rose, the rows got worse, the hiatuses in their interactions grew more pronounced.

He knew, from the time when he’d first began to draw any degree of self-awareness, that he was academically no better than mediocre, but in the specifics of anything numerical or scientific, that slid off into well below average. Occasionally awful, in fact. He’d struggled to even understand the concept of fractions well after he should have done. He’d been held back a year at one point in mathematics, and had then barely passed.

It was fairly obvious by the time that he was a teenager that he would never be a scientist. Or perhaps much of anything. That didn’t bother him very much, but it bothered Father, more than it bothered anything in the world, it seemed.

He remembered, aged about sixteen, being introduced to one of Father’s protégés, a young man, gifted, self-made, who hadn’t had a father who was the toast of the scientific world, but who had made it. A young man, with the whole of the rest of his life ahead of him. _This is Hojo_ , Father had said. _He is what you should be._

Hojo had smiled. A smile that swallowed, drowned the world.

Aged eighteen, after his rebellions against Father had grown steady and repetitive, like a metronome, it had all come to an awful, final head. A final anger, words spoken which could not be unspoken. _You know, you’ve been very disappointing to me, as a son._

 _Well,_ he’d said, _you’ve been very disappointing to me as a father._

He’d left home, sleeping on sofas, trying to put some sort of shape on what he wanted to do with his life, but finding – nothing. No desire to prove himself, no desire for a career, and no confidence in himself to create one.

He’d happily slunk into a listless drift for a few years, a life of petty jobs, his most constant relationship that with the bottle and weed. For a time he’d idly considered trying to become a teacher – maybe that might just, barely, be achievable. But he’d made no progress towards that beyond musing about it.

He’d established a decent counterbalance to the alcohol intake in the shape of the gym. Exercise had been the one thing he’d been relatively happy to embrace through the years. He’d enjoyed chocobo riding, when he’d been younger. Sometimes he’d idly toyed with the notion of trying to become a jockey when an adult, mainly as a mental exercise in conceiving how irate he thought he could make Father. But he'd genuinely enjoyed exerting himself; the adrenaline and endorphin rushes and the wonderful tang of feeling good about yourself, in spite of everything.

Strange, he’d think later, that through the one thing he most enjoyed, he’d arrive at being a Turk.


End file.
